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User blog:DylanTBest/Why the Originals Are Better Than the Prequel Trilogy
Since we're days away from the release of The Force Awakens I decided to finally respond to KaharZamet's blog 'Why the Prequels Are Better Than the Original Trilogy' blog because some people allegedly think that's true. In Kahar's blog he brings up four main points that he believes the prequels out do the originals in: *CGI *Acting *Characters *Story I'll mainly be arguing against those and bring up some other points. CGI In the original blog, Kahar claims that the CGI in the prequel trilogy is better than what's in the original trilogy. Different Times, Different Context To fully enjoy a movie you should understand the context of the time it was made. And when the original trilogy was made, the special effects (I say that because the originals used a lot more than just CGI) was ahead of its time. One can make the same argument about the prequels.HOWEVER. Once again looking at the context of the times the movies were made, CGI was a lot more stunning, innovative, and eye-catching around the Original Trilogy era. It was easier to be impressed by it. By Revenge of the Sith, movies with CGI were no longer anything new. In fact, thanks to Pixar Animation there was already a plethora of movies completely animated in CGI. TL;DR: The originals were made in the late 70s you dummy!!!!!! Over-Saturation One of the points that's brought up time and time again by people who dislike the prequels is the constant over-use of CGI. And that's a completely fair point. Throughout the prequels, little to no practical effects were used and looking at behind the scenes footage, it's clear director George Lucas was more focused on the special effects of the prequels, rather than the story itself. Even though it seems pretty hard to ruin the story and narrative simply by using CGI, but it managed to happen because GEORGE IS A HACK!!! In a lot of the scenes in the prequels, the narrative is interrupted by a bunch of random & obvious CGI creations being in the scene. It's a part of the reason why people hate the constant re-releases of the original trilogy having random CGI added for no apparent reason. By adding in a bunch of CGI, it takes your focus away from what's happening and brings it to whatever some guy who wished he picked a better career path created on a computer. For example: Let's look at the lightsaber arena battle on Geonosis in Attack of the Clones. With all these Jedi everywhere, it's really hard to care about what's going on with the story. A better example is the opening scene to Revenge of the Sith. In Revenge of the Sith, Obi-Wan and Anakin are in a CGI-fest filled with spaceships of all sizes shooting at eachother Compare that to the opening scene of A New Hope: We open with the Rebel's small starship being followed by the Empire's huge, menacing star cruiser. Considering how CONFLICTS in movies work we already know the little guys are the protagonists, and the bigger ship is being controlled by the villains. Inside the smaller ship we have rebels preparing for a battle that they inevitably lose. There didn't even have to be expository dialogue to fully understand the rebel's situation. Once Darth Vader is first scene, he explains what his goals are. There we go, in just a few minutes we've learned some pretty basic stuff. And guess what? Little to no CGI was used! TL;DR: The over-use of CGI hurt the narrative of the prequels and re-releases of the original trilogy. Acting I can understand why someone would say that the CGI in the prequels were better (they weren't), but the acting? "'' ''Even Admiral Ackbar’s lines, while memorable, were not that great." First off: Kahar confused acting for dialogue and memorability for quality. Secondly, I want to point out the fact that even THE ACTORS who worked on the original trilogy believed the dialogue was definitely the weakest link in the movies themselves. But that's what seperates the actors in the original trilogy form the prequels: In the original trilogy, the way the actors delivered the lines made it hard to notice that the lines were cheesy. Just look at these lines on paper: "You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine." "Good! Use your aggressive feelings, boy. Let the hate flow through you." If you showed someone who never watched Star Wars, they'd probably be instantly turned off by how terrible these lines are. But when watching it, it's really hard to notice how bad they actually are. The prequels, on the other hand... "NOW THIS IS PODRACING!" "I hate sand. It's coarse and rough and irritating, and it gets everywhere..." literally EVERYTHING exchanged between Padme and Anakin In Kahar's blog, he argues that the characters sometimes showed literally no emotion in the original trilogy. First off: Over-acting does not equal showing no emotion. As an example, Kahar brought up Leia not reacting to Alderaan being destroyed. We never see Leia after Alderaan is destroyed until she's being rescued, and she had pretty much no time to mourn during that time. She could have also either have been shocked or in denial (keep in mind destroying a planet was kind of a new thing in the Star Wars universe). As an example of the prequels showing an actor putting emotion into his performance, Kahar talked about literally the only time Obi-Wan shows any emotion: His battle with Anakin in Revenge of the Sith, and claimed there was no scene more emotional in the original trilogy. As my friend Justjeulin pointed out: The final confrontation between the Emperor, Vader, and Luke was way more emotional than that scene. To expand on Jeulin's claim, the final confrontation was a lot more emotional because we were able to see how Luke got to that point. We were able to see his relationship with his sister and his denial that his father is truly evil grow; we were able to see his frustration reach its peak; I can go on and on The Mustafar battle isn't as believable, because we never really see Obi-Wan's relationship with Anakin like we did Luke's relationship with Vader. In fact, there's an entire gap between A Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones we don't get to see. Instead of seeing it, we get Obi-Wan and Anakin's friendship fully developed right from the beginning. Hell, Obi-Wan and Anakin are apart through most of the movies, and when they are together they're constantly bickering. Characters The Characters in the Prequels Are Not Characters In the original blog, Kahar gives examples of characters in the prequels that were far more interesting than the characters in the original trilogy. Let's take a look at that list: *Anakin, Padme, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Darth Maul, Yoda, Ki-Adi Mundi, Mace, Palpatine, Dooku, Jar Jar, Grievous, Cody Let's remove all characters that were literally just in the background sometimes. *Anakin, Padme, Obi-Wan, Qui-Gon, Darth Maul, Yoda, Mace, Palpatine, Dooku, Jar Jar, Grievous, What about the ones that didn't appear through all three movies? *Anakin, Padme, Obi-Wan, Yoda, Mace, Palpatine, Jar Jar, The ones that were in the originals? *Padme, Mace, Jar Jar Let's just get rid of he-who-shall-not-be-named, why is he even here. Padme, Mace Now let's take these characters and do a test: Describe these characters without mentioning plot relevance, skills, relationships with the characters, and appearance. When you do that, Mace is literally just Samuel L Jackson with a lightsaber and Padme is a plot device used to make Anakin's transition to the darkside make sense. Story The most absurd of the claims got saved for last apparently. In the blog, Kahar claims the story in the prequels is better and a lot less cliche. "In the prequels, we had a richer story about how the largest faction in galactic history fell to the Sith and how the Chosen One fell to the dark side.", ''while the original trilogy is: ''"we’re being oppressed by bad guys so lets have some characters who are special rise up against them and fight to restore good." The original trilogies is not that. The original trilogy is the story of how a farm boy grew into a powerful warrior and put an end to the reign of the evil Galactic Empire. The original trilogy is the story of how a damsel-in-distress became one of the galaxies most esteemed leaders. The original trilogy is the story about how a protocol droid became a hero and deity. The original trilogy is the story of how a scoundrel and farm boy set aside their differences and became eachothers best friends and allies. The original trilogy is the story of Space Hitler redeeming himself. I can go on and on. You're absolutely right: The prequels is about the largest faction in galactic history falling. But that isn't a story - that's a timeline. Other *Due to it's character-driven story structure, the original trilogies were able to balance grand concepts like a war in space with more intimate like a long-lost son trying to turn his father back into the good man he once was. The prequels wasn't able to do that. *Aesthetically, the prequels is nothing like star wars. The original trilogy was supposed to pay homage to science fiction serials of the 40s, the prequels leaned more towards a mystical fantasy set in space. *More to come. Category:Blog posts